


Encounter

by QuillEnvy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drug Addiction, F/M, Madness, Sleepwalking, odd behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9315413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillEnvy/pseuds/QuillEnvy
Summary: Raleigh Samson contemplates lyrium, and has an encounter he isn't sure about





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ficlet I wrote before Trespasser came out and had been involved in a conversation about Samson being studied by Dagna and the Well of Sorrows driving the Inquisitor mad. 
> 
>  
> 
> All mistakes are mine as this work has not been beta read.

Samson sat with his back to a broken merlon on a broken part of the battlements. He could see the barn roof and the door to the kitchens from here. He also noticed that sometimes the redheaded spymaster would watch him from her balcony when he sat out here. Samson liked this part of the walls. It was quiet here, the stone cold and the chill helped to dampen the fire from the red. The setting sun staining the blocks around him orange he was largely left alone. He rolled the bottle blue between his fingers, contemplating it. Just holding it made him feel less anxious. Grasping the top of the bottle he held it up to an eye to watch the swirling blue liquid shimmer in subtle patterns when he heard the scrape of a foot along the wall walk. Samson stood shoving the vial into his pocket. He tensed expecting a fight. The soldiers would sometimes seek him out for a beating of some perceived injustice he’d committed as Corypheus’s general. Sometimes he would give as good as he got. Sometimes. But he was no longer young and the inquisition refused to give him the red.

The form that came into view was not who he was expected. Her hair was loose. Not all done up in those fancy Dalish braids she favored. It was also longer than he expected falling past her waist. It was white like an old woman’s. She turned her head and looked at him with those orange eyes. Like a cats. They caused a shiver to run up Samson’s spine. Samson struggled to remember her name. Something like Laura? Lyn? No, Lione. She was jabbering away in that weird elven tongue that no one could understand. The words sounded liquid to Samson. The Inquisitor looked right through him, and walked over to the broken part of the wall. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. _“_

_"Atish’an halam. Bellanar, Din’an. Mir lin theneras. Dirthara lothlenan’as. Ma garas mir renan, ara ma’athlan vhenas.”_ Lione’s voice was light, airy and scarcely louder than the wind out here.

She would switch between that sing-song elven and trade speech. Samson watched as she placed a bare foot on a crenel and stepped up into it. He continued to stare, not exactly sure what she was up to. Maker’s balls, he thought, she needed a keeper. The Inquisitor turned around to face Samson again and look at him. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. She kept speaking, and he was able to make out several words: wings, unfurled, fly. And she starts to babble in elvish again. Repeating the same thing over and over.

_“Mir lin theneras. Mir lin theneras.”_

The inquisitor raised her arms out in front of her, palms up, like those damn statues of Andraste, and started to lean back. Samson swearing leapt forward and grabbed the front of her tunic. He yanked a bit too hard and landed on his ass. Lione’s unresisting weight knocked him onto his back. Her hair fell across his neck and Samson froze, his blood pounding through his body as if he had just quaffed a bottle of the red.

This time when Lione woke she felt an arm around her waist and a fist balled up in the front of her tunic. She can feel her hair down her back, and around her sides. Harsh breath filled her ear. She blinked several times and lifted her head. The face that greets her is startling. These eyes had been hazel once; there were also small crystals of red lyrium in the white part. It was oddly fascinating. The Inquisitor blinked again.

“Samson?” Her voice is small, confused.

“Andraste’s ass, woman. If you are trying to kill yourself do it away from me.” He growled at her. “I won’t be accused of killing the bloody Inquisitor!”

Samson pushed her off of him, and Lione realized she had been sprawled across his chest, lying on the wall walk of the southernmost part of the battlements. They were next to the large collapse that had never been fixed. She sat up, took a shaky breath and rubbed her face. Her whole body tingled as if she had just been casting lightning spells. Samson stood and started to walk away.

“Samson…Raleigh, wait.” She called after him.

He stopped his back stiff and straight like he was waiting for inspection. He however refused to turn and face the Inquisitor. He didn’t want her to see how affected he had been by her soft curves and his shirt wasn’t that long. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he was starved for the warmth of companionship. Even when he had been thrown away by the Chantry, he tried to mimic some sort of connection with Kirkwall’s light skirts, but even that was futile and only lasted until the money ran out. At that point having dust was more important. He glanced back at her over his shoulder and sneered at her.

“Yes, _Your Worship?_ ” His sarcasm caressed her tile and made her flinch.

“What happened? Was I sleepwalking? Did I say anything?”Something in her voice stirred what little kindness was buried in his heart. Samson thought she sounded lost, confused and very afraid. More afraid than when she confronted him in the temple ruins.

“I clearly heard you say wings, and fly. You were also speaking in elven. Mur leen theeneraas. Or something that sounded like that anyway.” Her brown crinkled at Samson’s butchering of Lione’s beloved elven words.

_“Mir lin theneras?_ Does that sound right?” She asked. At Samson’s nod, she looked down. Samson took that opportunity to adjust himself the best he could and walked back over to sit on the bench he had recently vacated.

“My blood dreams… my blood dreams. That is odd.” Lione muttered, she frowned as she silently tried to puzzle out why she would say such a thing.

Samson looked at her hair pooled around her hips. He had to clench his hands into fists as the urge to feel if it was as soft as it looked washed through him. He silently berated himself for not noticing earlier when it had been draped over his neck.

“That makes no sense.” Lione whispered as she laid back down on the wall walk, arms straight from her sides. She stared at the sky.

Samson didn’t know what to do. He looked down at his feet. His head jerked up as the Inquisitor started laughing weakly.

“Oh you stupid, stupid girl.” She said “You thought you could handle the Well. It’s your heritage after all.”

Samson wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to him.

“Should have let that witch take it. Let her deal with the voices. The whispers. This madness.” Lione rolled her head to the side and looked at Samson with those odd eyes. “I am going mad you know. You and your master won after all.” She started to laugh again. “Just like you, I’m dead, but still walking around” Lione lifted a hand and moved two fingers like someone walking. She lowered it back to the wall walk and started to move her fingers of both hands lightly over the stone, feeling it's texture. “ …the inquisition still has their _herald_ …” She almost choked on that word. “ their symbol, their martyr. If they only knew. Lies, Raleigh, lies upon lies upon lies! Tivinter built on lies. Chantry built on lies.

Samson started at her. He licked his lips and rubbed his hands down his thighs. His left hand brushed the lyrium bottle he had hastily shoved in his pocket earlier. Tracing its shape, he swallowed. He was suddenly very thirsty, and neither water nor ale would do.

“Raleigh…” She sighed, something about the way she breathed his name distracted him from the lyrium in his pocket. It also tightened something in his gut. He couldn’t recall if anyone had ever said his name like that in his entire life. It sounded like a half plea, half prayer.

“Did you know, I am not allowed at meetings anymore?” Lione rolled up onto her hands and knees, and then crawled over to where he sat. Facing him she sat back on her heels. She grabbed the hank of her hair that had slithered over her shoulder and threw it behind her back. “Oh, they trot me out to show people that I am still alive. Occasionally they take me to a rift and I close it.” She placed her hands on his knees, and leaned forward, a mischievous grin spread across her face.  “Most of the time I am locked in my room. Imagine that, Raleigh. The Inquisitor locked in her tower like a naughty child or a lunatic aunt.” Lione winked at him, laughed again and pushed herself to her feet.

As she walked away, Samson watched her hips sway and wondered what in the void just happened.

**Author's Note:**

> Elven translation:  
> Atish’an halam. - The place of peace is gone  
> Bellanar, Din’an. - Many years dead  
> Mir lin theneras. - My blood dreams  
> Dirthara lothlenan’as. - Seek truth in a forgotten land  
> Ma garas mir renan, ara ma’athlan vhenas - Follow my voice , I will call you home  
> These last two lines are from a traditional Dalish lullaby; Mir Dal'en Somniar.


End file.
